An important thing to remember is that crowd humour is quite different from individual humour. A crowd will roar with delight if the lecturer accidentally knocks over the drinking glass on the table, but no individual ever laughs when a similar accident happens in a private room. Read the reports of speeches in the House of Commons. You will read that Lloyd George, in a speech, says: "And now let us turn to Ireland (loud laughter)." But in cold print it isn't a very good joke. Quite a good way of commencing a lecture is to tell a short story . . . about the chairman if possible. But you must be careful. Keep off the topic of the chairman's marital affairs; he may have lodged a divorce petition the week before. On second thoughts I think it better not to mention the chairman at all. Last winter the local mayor was presiding at a lecture I gave in an English town. After I had delivered the lecture, he got up. "I came to this meeting feeling dead tired," he said, "but after Mr. Neill's lecture I feel as fresh as a daisy." I rose in alarm. "Ladies and gentlemen," I said hastily, "the mayor has been sitting behind me. Do tell me: has he been asleep?" In the ante-room afterwards he assured me solemnly that he hadn't been asleep. On Friday night I began thus: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to talk about Forgetting." Then I put my hand in my inside coat pocket; then I tried another pocket, and got very excited while I rummaged every pocket I had. "I must apologise," I said, "but I have forgotten my notes." The audience laughed, and we became the best of friends. * * * * * Forgetting is very often intentional. We forget what we do not want to remember. Brown writes to me saying that he is taking the wife and kids to the seaside, and would I please pay him the fiver I owe him? I at once sit down and write: "My dear Brown, I enclose a cheque for five quid. Many thanks for the loan. Hope you all have a good time at the sea." Three days later Brown replies. "Thanks for your letter, old man, but you forgot to enclose the cheque." Why did I forget the cheque? Because I did not want to pay up. Consciously I did want to pay, for I wrote out the cheque all right, but my unconscious did not want to pay, and it was my unconscious that made me slip the cheque under the blotter. Last summer I was invited to spend the week-end with some people at Stanmore. I did not want to go; a previous week-end with them had been most boring. However, I reluctantly consented to go out on the Saturday morning. When Saturday morning came I was not very much surprised to find that I had forgotten to put out my boots to be cleaned the night before. "It looks as if I weren't keen on this trip," I said to myself.